Almost 30 years after its last performance, the London City Ballet – which once counted Princess Diana among its most ardent supporters – is to be "resurrected" and may even bring back afternoon shows for those who fancy watching dance on their lunchbreak.
Former dancer Christopher Marney today announced the company will return next year, performing at Sadler’s Wells in London – where it was once resident – and touring the UK and internationally.
"It felt like the right time to bring it back," Marney says, before adding that bringing the company back has been a "passion project".
Harold King set up the original company in 1978 with a base at Sadler's Wells and a touring programme which went around the country. It was the first ballet company that Princess Diana gave her patronage to, and she supported it from 1983 to 1996 – "she really believed this was a company doing good," Marney says. It closed in 1996 following financial struggles.
Since acquiring the rights, Marney has spent more than a year fundraising and rebuilding the London City Ballet, which has included getting to grips with its history, with help from the company’s former administrative director Heather Knight.
“London City Ballet’s rich history was too important to be forgotten,” says Marney, who is former artistic director of the Joffrey Ballet Studio Company in Chicago. “It was the first company I saw and it ignited my passion for theatre and ballet.”
For several former employees and dancers he spoke to "it changed their life, because it gave them a home outside some of the mainstream companies, where they could really prosper and dance roles they wouldn't have got to at larger companies".
Marney says, "I've been thinking about its resurrection. I always feel so much history is lost... I'm keen we don't forget things, that we're not always moving forward to the new. There's very little about this company, no books written about it, it sort of pre-dated the internet. So you can't read a lot about it."The company will start with 12 dancers and the full repertoire, which will be announced early next year, will include a new work by Olivier-award winning choreographer Arielle Smith, and Ballade, a Kenneth MacMillan work unseen in Europe for half a century.
"I'm not going to be touring full-length ballets like Swan Lake and Cinderella. I want to bring work to audiences that will challenge them," Marney says. "I want some new work but I'm also keen on the theme of resurrection – like the resurrection of London City Ballet – I want to look deeply into some of the works of our great choreographers that might have fallen out of the repertoire of mainstream companies. Not because they're not good works, but maybe they were for smaller casts."
London City Ballet will move into a purpose-built dance studio and office in Islington in the spring, and tour for six months for the first three years; its London performance base will again be Sadler's Wells.
"Harold King's whole ethos was to take ballet out of London, take it regionally to venues that might not have access to high quality dance," Marney says.
It started small, at the Arts Theatre in Leicester Square, doing lunchtime performances. "It was hugely popular with business people on their lunch breaks, coming in and seeing a very cheap dance performance." The director says they are looking at bringing lunchtime shows back as part of their plans.
He reached out to some of the smaller venues around the UK to which the former London City Ballet had toured previously, to gauge their appetite before pushing ahead with the project.
"The theatres said they were hungry for quality dance performance and their finding it hard to get British ballet companies to tour to those venues because of funding and the size of their stages."
He added, "I feel confident there is demand for it... We have a strong history and a strong name but it will take time to build our audience. I wouldn't have entered into this if I didn't think there was a need."
